


Staring at the Ceiling

by toph



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Minor Spoilers, minor trials of apollo spoilers, this is the cheesiest thing ive ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6769975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toph/pseuds/toph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the safety of a locked Cabin 13, Nico counts the exact time that it's been since he kissed Will Solace at the bonfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring at the Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> -hello darkness my old friend  
> -darkness = my eternal love for the pjo series  
> -i hope i did nico justice ive never written in his pov before (or written in a first person pov before and published it)  
> -every time i go back and re-read this i find another mistake with the tenses  
> -minor toa spoilers but i honestly havent even finished the book yet  
> -solangelo is canon and thats all that matter to me in life ive been waiting 84 years for this

It has been approximately two days, seventeen hours, forty-three minutes, and 30.4 seconds since Will Solace kissed me. Not that I’m keeping count, or anything. Coincidentally, I’ve been avoiding him for the past two days, seventeen hours, and now forty-four minutes and 2.5 seconds. 

I don’t know if things would have been different if it wasn’t at the bonfire. He just looked so cute strumming his guitar and grinning along to the pleasant chants of the other campers. So when he looked at me with eyes as bright as the sun at high noon while leaning steadily closer to me I had just lost it and met him halfway. 

Sparks flew. Literally. The campfire had already been high that night, ten feet in the air and alight with the excitement of a peaceful summer’s night but this had set it off the edge. The fire sizzled higher and when I pulled back and opened my eyes the outline of Will was glowing like somebody had traced him with a golden marker. The bonfire blazed higher than I’d ever seen it, and it had drawn the campers’ attention away from each other or their marshmallows. 

I had forgotten there was a crowd until that moment. Summers were the busiest time of year at camp, and I underestimated just how many people-how many pairs of eyes- there would be staring directly at me. At me- who had just kissed, on the lips, Will Solace. Will Solace, the son of Apollo, the best healer at Camp Half-Blood and an amazing singer and overall a wonderful person who was so very pretty and just so happened to be my friend. 

I muffle a groan into my pillow. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. 

However nice his face was, it couldn’t take away from the congregation of people staring at us like we had both grown a second head. I panicked, and I ran back to my cabin, and I had jammed the door despite gentle attempts on Will’s part to try and get me to open it and I had just sat there shocked thinking:

_“I just kissed Will Solace”_

Not much has changed over the past two days, seventeen hours, forty-seven minutes and 54.7 seconds. I’ve still been locked in my room, on my bed, repeating those same words over and over again as if it were an annoyingly catchy song. 

I’ve been going outside to get some food, but other than that I have excluded myself to my (now renovated) Hades’ cabin. I’m just glad that Jason isn’t around, he would be completely meddlesome and very pushy to get me to talk. In the past two days, seventeen hours, fourty-nine minutes and 46.1 seconds I’ve grown accustomed to staring at the ceiling. 

There is a soft knock on my door. 

“I uh, Nico? Can I come in?” the voice, whom I recognize as Will’s, is outside.

I get up. _Now or never_ , I tell myself, removing the chair that was blocking the door handle from opening all the way. 

Without opening the door, I went and lie down back on my bed. I stare up at the arched ceiling of the cabin, the sloping roof and the fancy lights hanging from it, hearing the tell-tale noise of the door creak slowly open in hesitance. 

Will, from what I can hear, stands in the doorway for a moment and then with his flip flops pattering against the floor comes to the opposite side of my unmade bed. The mattress dips where he lies downs and I can hear him rustling the sheets out of the way. He looks up at the ceiling too. 

It’s silent. 

It’s been two days, seventeen hours, fifty-three minutes, and 12.5 seconds since we kissed. And now he’s here, laying down on my bed next to me looking up at the same place I am but not looking at me. Not that I’m looking at him either, though.

“You know,” he starts “I use to live in the middle of nowhere, Texas. My mom used to travel to Austin to go play shows. That was where she met Apollo. Anyways, I lived at this old mining town with a population of 200. The mine shut down years before I was born. Every night, you could see the stars. There was no air pollution or light pollution, just the stars. I’ve always considered myself more of a morning person, but it doesn’t mean I can’t admire these giant balls of burning gas millions of lightyears away, y’know?

“When my mom started to get more famous we had to move into the city. There was a lot more opportunities for me in Austin- not to mention that there wasn’t a class size of ten kids between three grades- so I felt like that helped me in a way. But in Austin, there was so much lights and cars and people. It drowned out all the stars. It was saddening.

“After I found out I was a Half-Blood and came to Camp I always looked up at the stars. There were lots- but still not as much as there was in Texas. I always resented that. I mean, the stars were named after our Greek stories, but you couldn’t even see them all. But three days ago, Nico, in your eyes, I swear to the Gods that I saw them all.” 

Will finishes speaking. The cabin's silent. We're both staring at the ceiling. Between me and him, his hand is lying still. I grab it, noting how warm it is and interlock our fingers.

“Will,” I say, and he hums in response “for a guy that thinks healing is his only talent, that was an extremely poetic line. Cheesy, but poetic.” 

The tension that had stifled the room earlier is cleared away. Will’s laughter is beautiful like the rest of him and extremely contagious. I start laughing too. We both turn on our sides, facing each other now, and laugh until our sides hurt. We’re still holdings hands. 

Things are alright. We traded the ceiling for each other in those minutes of laughter. Will smiles at me, and I smile back. Our foreheads are almost touching.

“Are we okay?” he asks

“Of course.”

Will swallows down something and then speaks again. “I still want to apologize,”

“For?”

“For kissing you. I mean, not kissing you, because I’ve been wanting to do that since forever, but for kissing you in public like that. I should’ve waited,”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, and to be fair, I kind of met you midway in that,”

“Yeah but-- okay. No arguments,”

“No arguments,”

“I do have a question, though,”

“Which is?”

“Can I kiss you?”

I don’t answer. Will looks nervous and elated at the same time and I probably look identical. By now our foreheads are touching and I can feel the warmth radiating from his freckled skin so I lean in and he meets me halfway there. 

Will’s lips are the same like they were at the bonfire two days, eighteen hours, twenty-six minutes and 6.4 seconds ago. No literal sparks flew this time and there were no curious eyes looking our way. I decide I enjoy this a lot better than in public. 

We pull apart at the same time. We’re both still smiling.

“I like your smile,” Will says, and there’s blush on his cheeks. If there’s blush visible on Will’s tanned and freckled cheeks than my face must be reminiscent of an erupting volcano.

I want to lay like this with him forever. There’s a cute boy lying next to me humming softly to a song while playing with our intertwined fingers and he’s looking at me like I’m the millions of stars in the desert that he dearly miss.

I lose track of how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds it’s been since I kissed Will Solace for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> follow/check me out/hmu on tumblr or whatever (knicodiangelo.tumblr.com)


End file.
